It is often desirable to mix two or more separate materials with one another to form a more or less homogenous or disperse mixture or to treat one of the materials with another material. Often the materials being mixed are not only different materials, but have different states, such as for example, one material is a gas, whereas the other material is a liquid. Although various methods have been provided in the past for mixing gases and liquids together, such as for example, to aerate the liquid as an example of the application of the mixers, not all previously available mixing systems are suitable in a range of applications owing to their poor efficiency in mixing the different materials with one another. Efficient mixing of different types of fluids, such as dissimilar fluids and different types of materials, such as solids with fluids, are often required in many industries, including the water treatment industry generally, including waste water treatment, sewerage treatment applications and the like. In many instances, aeration of water based waste materials, such as for example, water wastes discharged from sewage treatment plants, is required to allow desired remediation processes to take place, such as for example, remedial water treatment processes, bioremediation processes or the like to maintain the health of the body of water or to assist in treatment of the water to allow the waste water to be discharged to the environment. As an example, oxygen is often used to treat waste water, such as for example, sewerage, or to treat waste materials from chemical processing plants, including food and beverage plants, or to improve the quality of a body of water prior to discharge to a drainage system so as to oxygenate the water to enable the water to support organisms, such as for example, populations of marine species, or the like, and to maintain conditions in the body of water to enable the aquatic species to survive.
Bodies of water in a more or less stagnant condition, such as a pond, lake or similar, often require treatment to maintain the health of the water in the body of water in order to allow the water to be used for a variety of purposes, or to maintain the water in a fresh condition to prevent unwanted biological processes taking place to degrade the quality of the water, such as for example, to reduce the chances of algal blooms, to reduce the emission of malodours from decompositions taking place in the body of water, or the like occurring. One way of maintaining the water in a healthy condition is to aerate the water to increase the oxygen content of the water, such as for example, the body of water is treated by biotreatment techniques in which micro organisms use oxygen to convert contaminants of the waste water into environmentally more acceptable substances which are not objectionable, such as for example, not malodorous, which have the benefit of remediating the body of water.
Existing mixers such as for example, surface aerators, pressurised gas pumping systems, vortex mixers, and currently available aerators have been used in the past to aerate water but have met with limited success due to their low efficiency and hence poor effectiveness which in turn, make them expensive to build, install and maintain.
One of the problems causing the lack of efficiency of the mixer is thought to be concerned with forcing the water to absorb sufficient quantities of oxygen to increase the oxygen content of the water above a critical amount so as to allow remediation processes to take place in the body of water by existing aerators having different rates of flow of water through various parts of the aerator which contributes to their poor efficiency, particularly as there is little or no control over the various rates of flow through different parts of the aerator.
Shortcomings of previously available inefficient mixers include having to provide multiple numbers of mixers, having to provide mixers of a large capacity, having to provide mixers of considerable power, all of which increase capital expenditure on the equipment, the cost of installation of the equipment, and maintenance and operating costs of the equipment, as well as the attendant problems caused by having to use such large scale and powered installations, such as the environmental effects through increased use of fuel, noise pollution, use of valuable resources, or the like. Therefore, there is a need for a mixer which is more efficient than currently available mixers for use in mixing two different materials with each other in order to be able to increase the interaction of one material with the other, such as the absorption of oxygen into the water, particularly to aerate bodies of water to increase the oxygen content of the water in order to maintain the health of the body of water.
One of the problems of currently used surface aerators is the high cost of maintaining the aerators in working order and the high cost of replacement parts used in the repair of the surface aerators. The cost of maintaining current aerators is almost as expensive as the capital cost of purchasing new aerators. Further, the effort and expense of moving currently available aerators in and out of the water for repair and maintenance is great due to the size and complexity of the installations because such movement requires the use of an industrial crane to lift the aerator. Further, as an example, the cost of repairing the gear box and other moving parts of currently available surface aerators has reached the point where repairs are being delayed for as long as possible and the actual use of the aerator has been reduced to a bare minimum in order to save costs, all of which result in the health of the body of water being placed at risk, such as for example, the lack of aeration is reduced to such an extent that the water is potentially a health hazard, such as for example, by the levels of sludge increasing, algal blooms occurring, or the body of water becoming putrid or the like.
Accordingly, it is an aim of the present invention to provide a mixer having an efficiency which is more economically acceptable.
Accordingly, it is an aim of the present invention to provide a mixer which enables increased amounts of water to be treated to maintain the health of the water but at a lower cost.
Accordingly, it is an aim of the present invention, to provide an arrangement for the flow of water through the mixing apparatus which arrangement provides increased efficiency by the mixer having an arrangement which allows the separate flows of water in the mixer being more consistent with each other.
Accordingly, it is an aim of the present invention, to provide an aerator installation having a more consistent flow through the aerator to promote more efficient treatment of water by having equal and/or balanced flows through the various pathways of the aerator.
Accordingly, it is an aim of the present invention to provide an aerator having more than a single flow path through the aerator in which the individual flow paths are more closely matched or balanced with one another so as to promote substantially even and consistent flow of water through the individual flow paths resulting in substantially equal flow rates through the various flow paths leading to improved efficiency of aerating the liquid being treated.